The Browning Version

Andrew Crocker-Harris, who has taught classics at the same school for years, is about to retire. The students dislike him, his colleagues do not take him seriously, his wife is with another man and does not hide it. In his last week a boy gives him a translation of the Agamemnon. Anthony Asquith directed, from Terence Rattigan's play, adapted by Rattigan himself. Michael Redgrave plays Crocker-Harris. The film's force gathers at the breaking point: a single act of kindness puts the man in front of a failure he has always known and never said aloud, and he cannot hold. Redgrave delivers it with almost no movement. It took two prizes at Cannes in 1951, Best Actor for Redgrave and Best Screenplay for Rattigan. The emotional coldness of the English school system is not background here but direct cause. It was remade in 1994 with Albert Finney. Who it is for: viewers who like stage adaptations and drama built on one character. Who it is not for: anyone wanting movement; this happens almost entirely in rooms and conversation.